Mobile phone sales drop off

Global mobile phone sales dipped below 400 million units in 2001, according to research from Gartner Dataquest.

It is the first decline in the history of the industry.

Overall sales to consumers declined by 3.2% to 399.6 million mobile phones in the full year, a marked difference from the 60% average growth rate between 1996 and 2000.

Many consumers appear to have held onto their existing phones while subsidies have been removed by telcos and there is a growing second-hand mobile market.

The research also stated that Nokia has the largest market share of mobile phones with 35%, an increase of almost 5% from 2000.

Motorola was in second place for 2001 with 14.8% market share, which was an increase of 0.2% from its figure of 14.6% in 2000.

Siemens was in third place with a 7.4% share of the market.